2024年臺灣工商心理學學會年會暨國際學術研討會

With the rise of diversity in labor populations in recent years, organizations have started to shift focus to management issues revolving around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Diversity means organizations that includes talents from various backgrounds such as age, religion, race, experience, specialties, etc. Equity means that talents of all backgrounds are treated equally by the organization and are provided with the same opportunities, regardless of their individual differences. Inclusion means creating an open and friendly work environment that accepts talents from all backgrounds, making talents feel respected, have a sense of belonging, and feel free to express themselves. DEI is crucial - as expressing equal care to talents of all backgrounds is important in achieving corporate social responsibility (CSR) and fulfilling sustainability development. In practice, implementing DEI within corporate sustainability development initiatives not only creates a corporate brand image that attracts a diverse of talents but also lowers employee turnover rate, increases employee productivity, and even affects the organization’s financial performance. For these reasons, multiple reputable companies, such as Apple, Schneider Electric, Shiseido, Disney, etc, have put in numerous efforts in pushing DEI initiatives and implementations. Corporations in Taiwan are also starting to be concerned about such subjects and have promoted localized DEI management systems.

In light of the employee-centered nature of DEI management practices, shifting corporates’ sustainability development goals from “corporate sustainability” to “talent sustainability” is a target that organizational psychology can make key contributions to. In regard to diversity issues, researchers and practitioners have assessed diversity management plans that can lead to optimized employee, team, and organizational benefits and efficiency. Researchers have also examined underlying mechanisms of diversity management through existing psychological theories and findings in order to enhance diversity management practices (e.g., inclusive recruitment and hiring, inclusive training, etc). In regard to equity issues, researchers and practitioners have utilized existing organizational justice theories, as well as findings and perspectives regarding prejudice, discrimination, and stereotypes, in efforts to create a fair and non-prejudicial work environment and management system. In regard to inclusive issues, researchers and practitioners have put in tremendous efforts in understanding how to exhibit inclusive leadership in order to establish a feeling of belonging and individuality within teams and individuals with diverse backgrounds (intrapersonal experiences) and create a positive communicative and cooperative relationship (interpersonal experiences), subsequently facilitating work performance. Cutting in from an organizational psychology perspective, centering the conversation on employees and concerning employees’ psychological states are the key entry points to examining corporate sustainability developments under a DEI context.

Accordingly, only through creating a platform for academics and practitioners to initiate conversations about how we can boost employee well-being and efficiency through better-designed and managed employee-centered DEI practices can we realize the vision of “talents being the organization’s greatest assets.” This vision is something an organization striving for sustainable development yearns for and will be a crucial achievement in leading to sustainability and longevity.

This year's conference theme is “Human-centered, Heart-driven: The Practice of Corporate Sustainability for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” By convening an international conference, we hope to examine how corporate organizations in Taiwan can uphold humanistic care through an organizational psychology lens and realize corporate sustainability locally under the context of diversity, equity, and inclusion. This conference hopes that through exchanges and conversations between academics and practitioners from all over the world, we can identify a unified research direction for DEI and sustainable development research and, ultimately, lead to effective solutions for DEI and corporate sustainability development issues.